Hydrogen cyanide is highly toxic, but a commercially important chemical compound having a wide variety of industrial uses. Shipment of this compound presents potential hazards. One way to avoid these potential hazards is to produce the product at the site where it is to be used. However this requires the installation of a large number of small production facilities. Such production facilities have in the past been expensive. It is an objective of the present invention to provide a process for the production of HCN that can be operated on a relatively small scale but efficiently and at low installation cost.
The present invention employs the use of microwave frequency radiation to cause ammonia or urea to react with carbon. The use of microwave radiation to cause chemical reactions of various types is known; for example in Wan U.S. Pat. No. 4,574,038 ethylene is prepared by the conversion of methane using a metal powder catalyst.